Busy lifestyles make it hard for most people to find time for physical exercise. Most individuals have demanding jobs and responsibilities to take care of and scheduling enough time for physical activity remains to be a wish that is often out of reach. Thankfully, there is High Intensity Interval Training – HIIT. With it, you can do workouts within a short period and still get better results as someone who has done the regular lengthy exercises.
What is High Intensity Interval Training?
HIIT is a form of workout that entails repetitive bursts of extreme exercises with periodic rests in between. The workouts happen in less than thirty minutes, thus a great exercise option for people who have little time for exercise in their schedule. A variety of activities including jumping, biking, sprinting, and some weight workouts can be used to perform high intensity training routine.
When you do HIIT the right way, you cannot hold a conversation during the intense period. Your heart rate will be high to do anything else. And when its recovery time, you take advantage of every second to get yourself back in shape before you can repeat the exercise. Remember that rest is an essential part of a proper high intensity workout plan.
What are some examples of HIIT? There are tons of high intensity interval training that you can do at home, in the workplace, playground, and at the gym. A treadmill sprint of 10 minutes of three repetitions with resting intervals in between is a good HIIT exercise for beginners.
Besides spending less time exercising, Interval Training workout routines have other benefits related to your health as well as the costs involved.
Benefits of High Intensity Interval Training – HIIT
1. You’ll Burn More Calories
Compared to other regular exercises, HIIT enables you to burn more calories. Studies estimate that doing HIIT burns about 28% more with just 20-second intense repetitive exercises with 40 seconds of rest.
Your body can get used to regular moderate exercise, thus little fat and calories are burnt in the process. But with HIIT, you are asking your body to do more than it can handle, requiring additional energy in execution, and that results in burning more calories within a short time.
2. You Rev Up Metabolism
High Intensity Interval Training is a better alternative to regular moderate exercises because it increases your metabolism hours after completing it. To put this in perspective; a two minutes
HIIT sprint will have the same effect as running for 30 minutes in the next 24 hours. That enables your body to continue burning calories many hours after the exercise.
The reason this happens is a lot of oxygen is consumed during HIIT exercises, which triggers metabolism to work higher than usual. Your body then begins to burn fat to use as energy instead of carbohydrates.
3. Your Heart Becomes Stronger
With intense exercises, your heart works harder to supply blood to the rest of the body parts. And just like other muscles, the harder the heart works, the stronger it becomes. If HIIT becomes part of your lifestyle, the heart becomes a healthy organ, which equips you to avoid heart conditions. Even those who have suffered from heart-related problems like blood pressure can bolster their cardio fitness with high intensity interval training routine.
For those with obesity and weight issues, HIIT is capable of mitigating blood pressure and heart rates as well. If your heart is healthy, intensity training won’t have any adverse effects – there is no need to worry.
4. You Gain Muscle With HIIT Exercises
Some people will increase muscle mass in the parts they use most for this exercise – often the legs and trunk. HIIT benefits studies have proven the muscle mass increases more in people who weren’t much physically active at the start than in active individuals. However, intensive training should not replace weight training but rather play as support.
If you have built muscles over time, HIIT routines can help preserve the muscles you’ve worked hard for while at the same time shred off most of the fat.
5. You Do It Wherever
HIIT exercises can happen anywhere as long as you have an interval timer app or anything that can help you keep time. That means you can schedule it in your work time, do it when at home, start it on the wayside, and anywhere you wish.
Even though high intensity interval training can use stuff like bikes, treadmills, jumping ropes, and more, you can do without them if they are out of reach. You can run, jump, skip, do push-ups, and do other things and still have an effective routine. Your aim with the exercises will be to speed up your heart rates as possible.
6. You Can Tailor it to Your Capacity
Everyone is different when it comes to exercising. What is challenging to one person might be a piece of cake to the other. High intensity interval training allows you to tailor a set of exercises that work for you, any time of the day, and anywhere. You can take 30 seconds of a workout, rest for 10 seconds within the intervals of four repetitions or change it to any other intervals you wish. As long as you do the intense workouts with the resting periods at appropriate times, you can achieve results fast.
Ready to Get Started With HIIT?
High Intensity Interval Training – HIIT is a perfect way to exercise and get results. You’ll burn more calories and fats faster than you would with other exercises. You also enjoy a higher metabolism, save on time, workout anywhere, and equip your body to resist and combat heart illnesses.
Though very good for the health of your body, high intensity interval training is not for everyone. If you are under medication, speak to your doctor first to see what they have to say about HIIT for your condition. For those who are attending various physical competitions like athletics, you should not replace your training program with HIIT exercises.
HIIT is a perfect exercise alternative that promises results (just as other forms of exercise) but with quicker results. Keep your diet clean with calculations of your calorie needs so that this training routine benefits you. Now get is started anywhere and at any time.